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It (Might Have) Happened Like This

Much of what we do in the courtroom relies on human memory. When a witness is asked to testify about past events, the accuracy of his account depends not only on his initial perception, but on the way the memories are recorded, stored and retrieved. For a very long time, it was believed that stored memories were much like video tape or film—an accurate copy of real-word experience that might fade with the passage of time or other factors, but could not be distorted or embellished.

Science now tells us that this view of human memory is fundamentally flawed.